When we began homeschooling 8 years ago, I was bound and determined to find the perfect curriculum. I was just sure it existed.
In the beginning, I went for cheap. I purchased the bare minimum and made do. But I wanted more. So, I purchased an all-in-one curriculum (also cheap) and went at it like I was killing snakes. But, I could never stay on track with it. I always felt behind and there were things in it I couldn’t do or I didn’t deem appropriate for the homeschooling classroom of 1.
That’s when I began lusting after a well-known classical curriculum. I printed every single sample page they had on their site and poured over those pages for hours on end. But the price. How could I afford the price tag? Well, I didn’t think I could, so I determined to piece something similar together all by myself. Epic Fail.
So, the next year, I begged my husband to drop the big bucks for this curriculum. He gladly did and I once again began killing snakes. But there were problems. One of the curriculum’s core books had a lot of information in it that didn’t mesh with our worldview and also left out very important facts. I spent many hours scratching out text and adding in information. I was disheartened. I plugged along with the curriculum for another year, but then set it aside. There were other reasons for my setting it aside, but at the top of the list was my disappointment in finding this curriculum was not perfect either.
The next couple of years were spent in disarray. I went through tons of curriculum (all purchased used), searching long and hard for the elusive perfection I was sure was out there until I came to the sad conclusion that no such animal existed.
I was lamenting my plight to a friend when she said the most profound thing…
Oh, I just skip that stuff.
Huh? Did she just say that she does not follow the schedule to a T? Did she just say that she skips entire paragraphs in books? Did she just say that she is able to teach from a less-than-perfect curriculum and do just fine? No way?!
You have no idea (well, maybe you do) how liberating it was for me to hear that my inability to find perfection didn’t have to hinder my ability to teach my children and teach them well. In addition to this epiphany, I had also grown up as a homeschool mom. I was finding my groove and it no longer mattered to me whether I was “on track” or not. The permission to skip entire books or sections of books was just one more key ingredient.
Fast forward to today…
I do all sorts of tweaking of nearly every curriculum I own. I thought I’d share with you just a few examples:
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The photo at the top of the page shows my 6 year old working on her phonics using a curriculum called Phonics Museum:
Phonics Museum Kindergarten Kit
The very first reader in the program is something our family has chosen to exclude. That meant dropping about 3 lessons total from the curriculum. Doing that has not left a deficit in Lia’s phonics skills. (You can read my full review of Phonics Museum here!)
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My 9 year old uses Apologia’s Elementary Science:
Rather than reading the lessons with her, she reads the book on her own. Apologia is great for this because is is written to the child; however, Megan doesn’t do any of the extra work in the book. She prefers to simply read the book as if it were a story. (You can watch a video review of Apologia Science here!)
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My older children do Sonlight
. However, I do not read every single one of the Read-Alouds to them. My children devour books much faster than I can shovel them down their throats, so by adding the Read-Alouds to their assignment binder, I can keep the hungry masses at bay a bit longer. (you can read more on how we’ve tweaked Sonlight HERE)
NOTE: Our family no longer uses Sonlight. We have gone back to our beloved Tapestry of Grace. You can find a post on how we tweak TOG here!
I hope this gives you some ideas and the permission to do what you need to do in order to make your curriculum work for you! If you need more ideas on how to tweak curriculum, check out my ebooklet How to Make Any Curriculum Work for Your Family!
Molly says
I SO SO SO SO SO needed to read this today!!! Not a teacher by trade…I jumped into home schooling a very headstrong little girl. Then added a boy…then another little boy with some special needs. All are under 7. Wanting to keep ‘in tune’ with the Christian Academy that is attached to our church, I use the same curriculum.
I’m not sure I could have made a worse choice for her or me. Yes…it’s like killing snakes, and it has seemingly killed her spirit and mine towards home schooling. It’s so redundant. She’s the type to learn it and move on.
I recently made a purchase of some other curriculum samples in hopes of rekindling a desire for learning.
Your post was encouraging today! I’m not totally warping my children, staying on track is the track that’s right for our family, not the adorned hallways of the Christian academy, and hopefully by high school graduation, we’ll have this figured out! LOL!
Lauree says
Amy! Thanks so much for this post, it was needed very much. I have felt like a failure because of some of the stuff I just couldn’t get done. My 10 year old also does the Apologia Elementary Science and I have felt terrible not being able to get all of the projects done. I won’t feel like that anymore! This is my first year to HS and alot of the time I feel like I’m failing. I never really thought just to tweak or skip over something-how refreshing and I’ll be doing some of that now. Thank you so much!!
Laura says
Amy, I was amazed too when someone told me that I didn’t have to do everything. I am a recovery public school teacher and that was just a NO! NO! After 6 years of feeling overwhelmed with a total Abeka curriculum, we have started putting together our own. I now use a combination of Abeka, Sonlight, Apologia, and Bob Jones plus some other stuff. Our whole family has benefited from it. Thank you so much for you insight, encouragement, and wisdom.
Sara Louise says
Yea!!! Just what I needed to hear today. I was in the process of deciding whether or not to skip the experiments in the Apologia Science curriculum we are using. You know, the ones with materials that NO STORE carries, and that I don’t want to drop a lot of cash for. Thank you. Guilt, be gone!
Deedee says
I know what you mean! We use Story of the World. But……..we only do one ‘extra’ activity with each lesson (sshhh sometimes we dont’ do any of them!), we dont’ always do all the workbook pages available, and when a subject catches our fancy we add lots of other books and materials and unit studies on it and leave the book for a few weeks (or months!) while we dive down a rabbit trail!
We enjoy the course more that way. And….when we are done with our rabbit trail, we simply pick the book back up where we left off – so I always know where to go back to. Works for us!
The liberating thing that someone told me was ‘You control the curriculum, dont’ let the curriculum control you.’ Sounds simple doesn’t it? But sooooooo profound! Thanks for sharing!
peggi says
Hi. Thought you might like to look at this homeschool site http://www.daniellesplace.com/homeschool/index.cfm. They have printing pages that are Christian based and lots of other stuff.
Amy says
Thank you, Peggi! Looks like a great resource.
Amy says
All three of my children have become excellent readers using the Phonics Museum, but I wish they offered a “simplified” cheaper option! I don’t use the games, the “museum”, or even the CD. None of it was necessary for us. I just stuck with the lessons (and skipped ones that felt like “make work” projects) and made sure we did lots and lots of practice with the readers.
I find the grade one curriculum has an awful lot of lessons for one year (160!) and my daughter was taking a little longer to learn some parts. We’ve gone slowly and done extra practice where needed, other days we’ve done two or three lessons per day if her understanding is solid. We’re still working on this in grade two and should be finished by Christmas. She’s going slower than my boys did, but she is also reading chapter books on her own, for fun, so I know we’re doing well :o)
BTW, regarding a past post about spelling, I too have a voracious reader who struggles with spelling and another son who is a natural speller. After reading your review of the Phonetic Zoo I took the plunge and bought it, and it’s making a huge difference!! Thank you!!
Amy says
Amy,
So glad to hear Phonics Museum is working for you! We love it! As for Phonics Museum, I was impressed at how reasonably priced the workbooks were, so I went ahead and bought the whole curriculum, knowing several children would use it. You might consider contacting Veritas with your suggestion!
Kimberly says
I absolutely agree with your post! Choosing what works for your child and your family is one of the most fabulous benefits of homeschooling!Good curriculum are flexible and can be adjusted to the child’s learning, interests and pace. This flexibility in learning is one of the reasons I created “Arithmetic Village”. (And because I couldn’t find any other math programs that captured my daughter’s interest.)
Gayle says
Oh my.. I am a master-tweaker myself. In fact, I’m not sure there is a curriculum out there (even the ones that I adore) that I haven’t changed up somehow to better suit our needs.
Ah, the beauty of homeschooling. 🙂
Kari says
I am so glad to have read this post today. Feeling less than excited about what I’m teaching these days. It is nice to be reminded that we don’t have to do it all. 🙂
Kela says
This is very liberating! I’ve spent years in disarray looking for “the” best curric.
I even knew that there was no such thing; thinking I’d put bits and pieces together only to exhaust myself when all is said and done and never even presenting it to my children!
Jennifer says
“I just skip that stuff” … INDEED! That really is becoming my saving grace for our homeschool day. There are so many great things out there, and so many things with so many layers of stuff. No one can know it all. It’s definately the homeschooler’s perogative to tailor their curriculum to their children.
Amy says
I still don’t know why I thought for so many years I HAD to do all the things listed on the curriculum guides! lol Love the freedom tweaking provides!
Lisa J. says
This is SO true, and I have been thinking about it A LOT lately. I’ve even had my own blog post running through my head about the subject. 😉 Without tweaking curriculum, it will rule our lives and put too much pressure on our precious homes and the values we so want in our homeschool in the first place!